Succession crisis (Latter Day Saints)
For roughly six months after Smith's death, several people competed to take over his role, the leading contenders being Sidney Rigdon, Brigham Young, and James Strang.
Between that time and Smith's death in 1844, the administrative and ecclesiastical organization of the new church evolved from an egalitarian group of believers into an institution based on hierarchy of priesthood offices.
[5] Two months later, in Kirtland, Ohio, Smith created a High Council, a body consisting of twelve men, headed by the First Presidency.
"[6][8] This council consisted of twelve men, called and ordained by the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon to the office of apostle, and appointed to oversee the missionary work of the church—meaning that their presiding role was outside of the Stakes of Zion.
Similarly, in April 1844, the elder Smith had reportedly prophesied his unborn child would be a son who was to be named "David" and would "make his mark in the world".
[23] David Whitmer had been ordained President of the High Council of Zion, and Joseph had blessed him on July 7, 1834, "to be a leader or a prophet to this Church, which (ordination) was on condition that he (J. Smith) did not live to God himself".
[26] Smith's death left a number of important church leaders, councils, and quorums – many of which had overlapping and/or evolving functions – without guidance.
The Quorum of the Twelve were originally ordained to be traveling ministers and had been delegated leadership of outlying areas of the world in which no "stakes" – local congregations – were established.
[32] However, as stated by Smith at a May 2, 1835 conference, "the twelve apostles have no right to go into Zion or any of its stakes where there is a regular high council established, to regulate any matter pertaining thereto.
[citation needed] Another possibility for succession was the Council of Fifty, a group of trusted men, some of them non-Mormon, who campaigned for Smith's 1844 run for president, and sought the establishment of a theocratic government.
Rigdon returned to Nauvoo first (August 3) and the next day announced at a public meeting that he had received a revelation appointing him "Guardian of the Church."
[39] On August 6, Young and the rest of the Twelve returned to Nauvoo; the next day, they met with Rigdon, who repeated his claim to become the guardian of the Church.
"[53] Van Wagoner argues there are no known contemporary records of "an explicit transfiguration, a physical metamorphosis of Brigham Young into the form and voice of Joseph Smith" and that "[w]hen 8 August 1844 is stripped of emotional overlay, there is not a shred of irrefutable contemporary evidence to support the occurrence of a mystical event either in the morning or afternoon gatherings of that day.
He met with the Twelve and members of the Anointed Quorum on August 9; Bishops Newel K. Whitney and George Miller "were appointed to settle the affairs of the late Trustee-in-Trust, Joseph Smith, and be prepared to enter upon the duties as Trustees of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
[60] While these events were going on in Nauvoo, another successor of Smith began to exercise his claim in the church's outlying branches in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Although he was a recent convert (baptized in February 1844), James J. Strang posed a strong, determined, and initially quite successful challenge to the claims of Young and Rigdon.
Strang was an elder in the church, charged with establishing a stake in Wisconsin should the Latter Day Saints be forced to abandon their headquarters in Nauvoo.
Strang's claim appealed to many Latter Day Saints who had been attracted to the early church's doctrines of continuing revelation through the mouth of a living prophet.
Strang claimed to commune with angels and that he found and translated supposedly ancient records engraved upon metal plates, just as Smith had.
Some prominent Latter Day Saints believed in the Letter of Appointment and accepted Strang as the church's second "Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Translator."
[61] Whether she shifted her support from Young to Strang in the year following that October Conference is a matter of debate; what is certain is that she never made it to Utah, staying instead with her daughter-in-law, Emma, in Nauvoo until her death in the summer of 1856.
The actual authority of the Common Council of the Church to execute this action is a controversial topic between many organizations within the Latter Day Saint movement.
On April 6, 1845—fifteen years after the original organization of the church—Rigdon presided over a General Conference of Rigdonite Latter Day Saints in Pittsburgh, establishing a new hierarchy.
The new Quorum of the Twelve Apostles consisted of: William E. M'Lellin, George W. Robinson, Benjamin Winchester, James Blakeslee, Josiah Ells, Hugh Herringshaw, David L. Lathrop, Jeremiah Hatch Jr., E.R.
The majority of Latter Day Saints in the Nauvoo area accepted the leadership of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, either immediately or within the following two decades.
They view Young's assumption of power as a violation of church law compromising the authority of Sidney Rigdon without a majority quorum vote.
[citation needed] Many of the Latter Day Saints who remained in the Midwest, including Strang, believed that one or more of Joseph Smith's sons would eventually lead the church.
The church had published a revelation in 1841 stating "I say unto my servant Joseph, In thee, and in thy seed, shall the kindred of the earth be blessed",[68] and this was widely interpreted as endorsing the concept of Lineal Succession.
In the late 1850s, they proposed a more solid church structure, sometimes referred to in contemporary sources as the New Organization, and like other Latter Day Saint groups asked Joseph Smith III to be their president.
Smith III stated at that conference in Amboy, Illinois: I would say to you, brethren, as I hope you may be, and in faith I trust you are, as a people that God has promised his blessings upon, I came not here of myself, but by the influence of the Spirit.
